I tell them they can sell skin grafts to giraffes or something. But there aint going to be a market. It’s simple and straightforward – business is about establishing a long-term commitment to the market. Even if it means competition, you should know that customers appreciate good competition, and therefore expect better value. It also means good news for you… if you know how to compete properly.

Here are some issues you should look into seriously to decide how to compete in your business:

- How are you communicating to your customers?
- What does your customer base want? In fact, do you know what they respond to and what they don’t like?
- Is there anything that your customers like that you can give away for free at minimal cost?
- What unsolved problem have your competitors not met yet? Can you do this for your customers?
- What are your core strengths? Can you amplify them through training and development in order to gain a competitive advantage?

As you consider these questions, write them down and build a plan that can be executed and tracked. This will form a clearer path for your online business.

Take action!

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-says-yes-you-can-still-sculpt-pagerank-no-you-cant-do-it-with-nofollow#jtc88204

If you intend to keep in touch with SEO related news, you might want to continue learning more about SEO and other optimization practices like I have over the last 3+ years.

STEP #1: Go to Wordpress.Org and search for the Wordpress Automatic Update Plugin

STEP #2: Click Download

STEP #3: Click OK

STEP #4: http://Login to www.BluehostSpecial.com

STEP #5: Select the domain you are editing, click ok

STEP #6: Click subfolder wp-content

STEP #7: Click subfolder plugins

STEP #8: Click upload button

STEP #9: Browse for zip file

STEP #10: Once uploaded, close this tab

STEP #11: Reload

STEP #12: Select zip file and click Extract button

STEP #13: Login to your Wordpress Dashboard on your own domain name

STEP #14: on Left sidebar click “Plugins”

STEP #15: Look for Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin and click “activate”

STEP #16: You’re done! Whenever there is an update required, there will be a notice in the location the arrow is pointing at.

This has important implications for your own search engine optimization efforts. If you don’t want people to grab your username, you’d better be there yourself in a couple of hours to rush for it.

I’ll start this thread and anyone who wants to update their favorite article directory can list it here in the comments.

1. www.EzineArticles.com
2. www.ArticleCity.com
3. www.Goarticles.com
4. www.Self-Growth.com
5. www.ArticleAlley.com
6. www.ArticleDashboard.com
7. www.ArticleSnatch.com
8. www.ArticlesFactory.com
9. www.Amazines.com
10. www.ArticlesBase.com

In my opinion, I think systems are the most valuable part of any Internet marketer’s necessary tool box.  The main reason I’d say this is because after building several systems myself, I’ve realized that different individuals have different ways to interface with the system.  Some people can take my system and use it effectively.  Other people cannot.  The main reason is because they have not arrived at the level of business but maturity to be able to leverage this kind of knowledge.

Another thing that prevents me from talking about systems is that most people in the Internet marketing community aren’t interested in them.  Systems don’t make you money.  Or at least, that’s the impression most people have.  I can draw you  flowcharts all day long, but people want an easy way to make a huge load of money with the least amount of effort. Only those who have experienced internet marketing will be able to do something with it.

This comes back to the mindset in business building.  If you don’t know how to build a business, it’s because you don’t have the blueprint.  You’re online architecture is insufficiently planned. Also, it doesn’t make any sense for me to review my business practices to anyone other than people who might trust and who can give me some kind of significant benefit.

This will change, however, when people begin to realize there is no silver bullet.  You cannot jump into the Internet marketing world and expect to be able to drive profit without a proper set of systems.  This is what I would consider is your business model.  Every business model notes to answer the question “how do I bring prospects and convert them into paying customers so that I can have a sustainable and profitable long-term business?”

If you’re able to answer this question, you will realize that the necessity to track the way you are running your business is very high.  The way in which it track how effectively you convert prospects and customers, and how profitable you can be.  In addition, indeed sustainable cash flow to keep your business running.  These are things that many people in the Internet marketing community never teach you.  In this sense, it is extremely important for them to fail so that they will begin to look at the reality of the situation.

Sounds harsh?  Well, I think many people stupidly fall for many marketing gimmicks.  Even if they weren’t gimmicks, many people don’t have the tenacity to follow through on the things that are doing. So you have a blog, and it isn’t earning you money.  What have you done that you think should be generating you money?  If you don’t even now, how can you make changes to your blogging strategy?  So you have a product and it isn’t selling.  What have you done to think that you should actually deserve any sales in the first place? And if you don’t know, how can you presume that your product will sell?

You have to build a proper business model that begins with the prospect in mind and how you convert them into paying customers.  If you can fill in all the stuff between aspects and cash in your bank account, you will have a proper system that you can track and measure against.

As for my own business system, I teach this stuff literally every day. Wanna use it? Then take action. It’s not difficult to do, and I challenge you to put aside your biases and stop thinking you don’t have to work hard to achieve your goals.

Oh… you wanna stop working hard? That’s another system…

• Many people in Asia are not comfortable writing in English.
• Writing is a tedious process because it is not usually a habit.
• It’s a tedious process to even generate good ideas for articles even if you can write.
• To submit completed articles is a barrier because you want maximum exposure, and submission is an administrative process that wastes time.
• Even if you do submit articles, you end up not really knowing which is the best category for you.
• There’s a gazillion different software that confuse rather than help leverage.

photo credit: Adam (adamjinj)

So how do you address this? Here’s my suggestion. First of all, you have to remember that article traffic can be done by you, but you don’t have to be the only person doing it yourself. Even if you’re proficient at writing, and you really want other people to do this so that you can automate the article marketing process.

Next, you need to hire people who are reliable. It’s a common sense question – how do I hire people to get this done for me without creating more work for myself? My suggestion is to split up the work. Instead of just hiring individuals, hire a team or company you can outsource to. This way, if there is any problem, it’s the company’s responsibility to ensure that the work of writing is completed.

Then it’s the process of submission. Get another group/team to submit your articles for you.

So, at this juncture, you probably think that it’s going to be hands off for you? Wrong. You should set up a checking system where another individual is hired to police the submissions and writing. If you can do this, it will definitely save you lots of time and effort while generating a huge amount of traffic.

I also know people who have bought submission tools for their team so that the team can be more efficient in submission work!

Why do I NOT recommend using the commercial approaches to article writing and submission? Well, because there are too many people who are using those services and I have no clue as to the quality no matter how many gurus recommend those services. Personally, I would rather set a private system for myself and let that be my own secret weapon, not need to share this with other people!

So, in summary, you need:

1. a team of writers
2. a team of submission grunge workers
3. a project manager to handle the tracking and supervision

Wow – isn’t that going to increase your costs?

Well, if you do this effectively, you will need to set a target in the first place. What is your goal? Is it to submit 100 articles in a month? Hmm.. here’s a calculation. You could do this at around $5 per article, meaning $500 a month.

So, you will need submission assistants, right? If you want to submit 100 articles to at least 10 article engines, that may cost you another $300-$500.

The question is how much does that bring you? Investing $1k is not a small sum, right? Well, how much traffic will it build? How fast can you opt-in your visitors? That’s the real question. After you’ve got subscribers, shouldn’t you think of the offers to bring to them? That means you really need an autoresponder system to handle that. You’ll also need a way to write your autoresponder sequence!

Wow, some more work? Well, the truth is you need to manage your business model. If the business model is not properly formed up, you will not be able to have any clarity on the business approach in the first place. Lack of clarity will cost you more money, and therefore you need to systemize your process, email writing and so on.

I hope this article will give you a starting point at least. Start drafting a basic business model surrounding article traffic, and use outsource talent to move toward your desired goals in internet marketing.

photo credit: cmcbrown

The point is this. If you want to socialize, don’t just post random thoughts because you are thinking to yourself. Twitter is a social tool, and requires you to seek out people. Use http://search.twitter.com to find people based upon keywords. You might discover interesting people to follow. Also, make sure you are clear about who you want to follow because you will be getting all their updates.

Some of the more interesting people can be found at http://twitter.grader.com. This place has some of the elite twitter members ranked on a certain kind of algorithm. And, if you type in “Singapore” I happen to be listed as #1

Oh, a friend of mine happens to be launching a very special Twitter report that might leave you a little more than just excited. Click here just to see the dark side of Twitter and use it to your advantage! *HINT* His technique known as Rubbing Multiple Lamps could turn around your business and make you profitable again. Click to watch.